You could argue that this question has been discussed before, and that that is the reason why there are laws against noxious businesses in populated areas. If

You could argue that this question has been discussed before, and that that is the reason why there are laws against noxious businesses in populated areas. If you want to operate that tannery of yours you had better have a good case and make it. If it's just your right against theirs, that is the short path to "direct action", and you cannot have that in a civilized society. You could also argue that you have the right to operate that tannery of yours but choose not to exercise it out of consideration of the people who will suffer from the stench. That would be the aristocratic viewpoint, argued eloquently by Ernst Jünger in the "Ledge at Masirah". Either way, there is such a thing of society, and anyone arguing cleanly has to take that into account.